Vesalius: the China Root Epistle: A New Translation and Critical Edition

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This book provides the first annotated English translation from the original Latin of Andreas Vesalius' China Root Epistle. Ostensibly his appraisal of a fashionable herbal remedy, the China Root Epistle concentrates on Vesalius' skeptical appraisal of traditional Galenic anatomy, which was based on animal rather than human dissections. Along with reflections about his life as a young anatomist, Vesalius argued that the new science of anatomy should devote itself less to rhetorical polemics and more to the craft of direct observation based on human dissection. This volume provides annotations to link the Epistle with Vesalius' earlier and more famous work, On the Fabric of the Human Body, and includes illustrations from the famous woodcuts first used in the 1543 edition of the Fabrica.

Dedicatory preface Franciscus Vesalius

Author's greeting to Joachim Roelants

Occasion for writing about the China root

With what success many have used the China

Description of the China root

Method of preparing the China decoction

Quantity of the first China decoction to be delivered, and the time to give it

How a sweat should be induced

What drink is useful

Sleep and wakefulness

Movement and rest

Concern about bodily wastes

What affects of the mind are applicable

Sexual activity

How long the first decoction should be used

A method of taking and preparing a second decoction

A way of administering sparta parilla

Native and familiar drugs should be put to use rather than exotics

Decoction of chamaedrys

No small results can by expected from genuine rhapontic

Hapless people who gratify themselves by publishing something

Occasion for the letter of Sylvius in which it was declared that nothing written by Galen is completely in error

Occasion for the opinion, here to be recorded, of the letter in which Vesalius replied to Sylvius

Galen did not dissect humans, but teaches the study of animals instead of man

A number of conjectures from the bones

Conclusions drawn about the fat, muscles, and ligaments, whereby it is concluded that Galen did not describe the human fabric

Several places taken from the series of veins and arteries in which it is inferred that Galen did not dissect humans

Reasons taken from the nerves by which it is known that humans were not dissected by Galen

Reasons selected from the contents of the peritoneum

Some conjectures based upon the parts that are contained in the thorax

Reasons taken from those contained in the skull

Some places where Galen openly criticized the Ancients because they had dissected humans and not apes, as he did

Not everything in his description of the parts was correctly reported and described by Galen

A number of untrue descriptions in the bones

Several inaccurate descriptions taken from the account of muscles and ligaments

Some false descriptions gathered from the account of veins and arteries

Accepted descriptions in the account of nerves which are not quite true

Descriptions of the parts that are contained in the peritoneum, which are not entirely true

Several untrue descriptions gathered from the parts contained in the thorax

False descriptions among the parts that are surrounded by the skull

Some places where it is known that Galen was not altogether sound in assigning the functions and uses of the parts

In his account of the bones

Several uses and functions not well assigned in Galen's account of the muscles and ligaments

Places collected from the description of veins, arteries, and nerves where it is known that Galen consistently assigned incorrect uses and actions

A description of some things that are contained in the peritoneum

From the description of parts located in the thorax and skull

Some invalid anatomical proofs of Galen are mentioned

How useful the annotations of Vesalius have been in Galenic anatomy, and how little they are to be needed hereafter